Breaking Point
by Prisoner 24601
Summary: When the sole survivor discovers the fate of her son, it's going to take all of her friends to help her find her way through the darkness. A Fallout 4 fic featuring Paladin Danse, Hancock and Nick Valentine. *Complete*
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This is part one of three. Major game spoilers about the fate of the Sole Survivor's son ahead. Written because I found the player character's in game response... lacking.

 **Breaking Point**

 **Part One**

The vertibird rocked and swayed as it cut a swath across Boston's night sky from the Prydwen to the Castle, but Paladin Danse's attention wasn't on the patchwork of raider and supermutant strongholds illuminated by glowing burn barrels below. Instead, Danse watched the woman seated across him, the sole survivor of Vault 111, who was so silent and still that if he hadn't seen her climb into the vertibird, he would have thought he was sitting across from an empty suit of power armor.

A thousand questions burned his lips, questions about what had happened to her during the twelve hellishly long hours she'd disappeared into the belly of the Institute. Questions that she'd cut short with a curt wave of her armored hand when he'd asked them. Questions that she'd hadn't answered even when she'd turned over the holotapes and reported to Elder Maxson.

Her terse and tense quiet was so out of character that the soul searing relief he'd felt when she'd returned from that impossible mission crumbled away, and by the time they touched down just outside of the Castle walls, his guts were twisted into a hard, cold knot. Something had gone wrong, Danse was certain of it, but there wasn't much he could do at the moment other than hop out of the transport behind her and follow her through the sentry points and automated gun turrets into the Minutemen's Headquarters.

Any thought that he'd get the chance to interrogate her died when he saw that they weren't alone in the courtyard. Even though it was the middle of the night it looked like half of the Castle was up and waiting for her to return.

Garvey caught up with her first, falling into step beside her armored bulk with such familiar ease that something hot and sharp twisted in Danse's chest. Danse ignored the troubling sensation that was becoming more common the more time he spent with her. It was best not to know what it meant or where it had come from, he had no room in his life for anything besides the Brotherhood after all, so he shoved it from his mind as he followed the pair across the yard.

Cait, Hancock and Deacon brought up the rear, the insubordinate civilian and pathological liar shutting the door when they were all in the brightly lit room. Deacon looked over at Danse with a smug smile as he crossed his arms over his dirty t-shirt and leaned against the racks of stockpiled weapons as though he was daring the Paladin to toss him out. As much as Danse wanted to do exactly that, he swallowed his usual objections to the man's unexplained presence, his instincts telling him that now was not the time to fight that battle.

"Welcome back, General," Garvey said. His soft words were formal, but the naked relief in the Minuteman's eyes was an exact mirror to what Danse had felt himself less than an hour ago when he'd watched her step off of the transporter platform. Then he asked the questions that Danse had already asked. "Did you find the answers you were looking for? Did you find your son?"

She didn't answer Garvey either, and the sound of her silence thundered off of the stone walls until it was broken by a hiss as she disengaged the locks on her power armor and stepped out of the suit. As usual, he was struck by sweep of shoulder length ebony hair, unblemished fair skin, full red lips, and the straightest set of perfect white teeth he'd ever seen. A year out in the wasteland, and the Knight that was technically his subordinate still looked like she'd stepped straight from the glossy pages of a pre-war magazine.

But it wasn't just the usual burn of desire that he'd done his damnedest to ignore that hit him in the gut this time. The look on her usually expressive face was now as vacant as the mannequins they sometimes ran across on their missions. Worse of all, the clear blue eyes that usually snapped with intelligence and humor were flat and dull and as though she wanted nothing more than to lay down and die.

There was only one thing Danse could think of that could put that bleak look on her face and he wasn't the only one who came to that conclusion. Hancock's voice came from behind Danse's shoulder. He might be a filthy ghoul, but he shifted in his leather boots and muttered what everyone in the room was thinking.

"Aw, _shit_."

Dogmeat trotted forward and whined at his mistress who jerked her hand away when the dog tried to nuzzle it.

"I'm going to my quarters," she rasped. She didn't look at anyone in the room, instead her blue eyes fixed on the far wall as though she was looking at something the rest of them couldn't see. "I don't want to be disturbed."

Then she walked out the door, leaving the rest of them staring at her back, except for Dogmeat who whimpered and followed at her heels despite her command. There was a few moments of horrible silence until finally Cait exploded.

"This is _bullshit_ ," Cait said, her accent making the words sound as sharp as daggers as she threw her hands wide and snarled at the rest of them. "We can't just let her go off on her own."

Danse's voice rumbled from his chest. "She's already done her duty and turned over the most vital intelligence to the Brotherhood leadership. As for the rest, considering what she probably found out down there, I think we should respect her wishes and let her have some space."

"Do you now?" Cait spat the question at him as her eyes flashed like muzzle fire in the dim light of the armory. "We should just let her lock herself in her room so she can blow her brains out? Or maybe just wait until she crawls into a bottle or shoots herself up with the poison that will make her a dried up junkie? Is that what you think, tin man?"

Unintimidated, Danse scowled down at her. "She won't hurt herself. She's not like _you_."

A flush crept across the bridge of Cait's nose and she jerked back as though his words were a physical slap. He almost felt guilty when he saw the look of shameful self-loathing that twisted her face for a second before her sneer returned.

"I don't know about that," Deacon said, cutting off whatever Cait was about to say. He took off his sunglasses and hooked them on the collar of his dirty t-shirt. The sly look that he usually wore on his face was gone, replaced by a bone weary tiredness that for once seemed genuine. "There's only one thing I can think of that would put that look on her face. People do crazy things when they're grieving."

"No. She's stronger than that. If Shaun is dead because of the Institute, she'll fight until her last breath to make those bastards pay." Danse wanted to believe his own words badly, but a part of him wondered if he was just in denial because he couldn't face the thought of watching her waste away as she killed herself slowly. How the hell this woman had become such an essential part of his life in just the few months they'd travelled together Danse didn't understand. He just knew that the thought of not having her fight by his side was too bleak to accept.

Hancock shook his head, his already shriveled lips pulling back into a pained grimace. "I don't know, man. I didn't see any fight left in her. That's what's got me worried. Maybe she'll snap out of it. Maybe she won't. All I know right now is that we have to do something."

"Like what?" Preston asked with a sigh. "We can't take her grief away, or feel her pain for her."

"But the people who love her can help her bear it," Deacon said as he shoved off of the gun rack behind him and looked at Danse.

Danse frowned for a moment, and then nodded. The words came grudgingly, but there this wasn't the time to let his distaste for the... _thing_ his Knight called her best friend cloud his judgment. "You're right. Someone needs to go find Valentine. Piper and Macready too."

"That's... not what I meant," Deacon drawled as his brows lifted towards the stone ceiling. "But it's not a bad idea either."

Preston's gaze darted towards the door. "Piper and Macready volunteered to go out to Abernathy Farm to help with a kidnapping. Even if they turn around now, there's no way they'll be back for at least a couple more days."

"And Valentine?"

"He's in Diamond City wrapping up a couple of cases," Deacon said. "I'll go get him and bring him back."

"I'm coming with ya,"Cait said.

Deacon's lips twitched. "It's alright. I'm a big enough boy to make it there and back on my own."

"I don't care. I can't just sit around here with me thumb up me arse, like him," she said as she tossed a glare at Danse, her fists clenching as though she wanted to take a swing or two despite his power armor.

"Alright. Let's go get Nick before you do something stupid," Deacon said as he grabbed her elbow and steered her out the door. "We'll be back as soon as we can."

"What about you? You going to stick around, or haul ass back to Prydwen?" Hancock asked when Deacon and Cait were gone, his gaze sweeping up and down Danse's power armor as though the ghoul had the audacity to take his measure.

Danse's shoulders straightened under the scrutiny. "I'm not going anywhere. Although I will contact the Prydwen and have them send a vertibird to pick up Piper and Macready once they've been contacted and located."

"That's got to break every protocol in the Brotherhood's book. They'll do that?" Preston asked as he headed towards the door.

The ghoul and the soldier followed him, pausing only for a moment when Danse said, "Yes." When both Hancock and Garvey shot him surprised looks, he added with a shrug, "One of the pilots owes me a favor or two."

"Favors, huh? That sounds kind of shady for such a stand up member of the Brotherhood," Hancock said, his rasping voice almost sounding like he approved. "Didn't know you had it in you, Danse. I'm impressed."

It was on the tip of Danse's tongue to snap that he didn't give a damn if the ghoul approved or not when Garvey interrupted. "Good. But someone's got to watch her in the meantime. We all know which one of us that should be."

Danse managed not to flinch when the Minuteman and the ghoul stopped in front the entrance to the corridor leading to the base commander's office and looked at him. He might not like either of them, but that didn't make them wrong. Turning his back on her now, if she truly needed him, wasn't an option.

"You're right. She's my subordinate, my soldier, and a sister-in-arms. It's my duty to check in on her."

"Fuck me," Hancock said as his lip curled into a snarl exposing his pink tongue and crooked brown teeth. He jabbed a bony finger at Danse's chest. "She's just lost her son. This duty and honor bullshit isn't what she needs right now and you fucking well know it. Even you can't be that oblivious."

Garvey stepped between them. "Hancock, this isn't the time."

"No this is _exactly_ the time. If he can't go in there and act like a god damn human being for once, then he needs to get the fuck out of the way and let one of us do it."

"I'm a soldier and a squad commander. It's not the first time I've had to handle something like this," Danse ground out, squelching the doubt in the back of his mind pointing out that he hadn't so much handled Scribe Haylen and as he'd reacted as best as he could to what had fallen squarely in his lap. "I know what I need to do. Now back off, ghoul, and let me through."

Hancock's eyes narrowed as the ghoul muttered something through crooked clenched teeth that sounded like, " _Asshole_."

Danse ignored the insult, stepped around the pair of men and made his way through the dimly lit corridor to the end of the hall. He stopped in front of the closed commander's office door, took a deep breath and knocked.

"Is everything all right in there, soldier?"

There was no sound from inside which didn't surprise him. The way the door was locked, however, did. The only answer he got was whining at his feet. Danse looked down and saw Dogmeat ears perked, head cocked to the side as the dog sniffed the door. Then the dog barked, leapt up, and began to claw frantically at the wood.

Cold fear sluiced over him. For the first time since they'd met, Danse used her first name as he pounded on the door with his fist. "Nora, are you in there? Are you alright?"

The keening wail that came from the other side made the hair on the back of Danse's neck stand on end. It was a terrifying and inhuman noise, a cry of rage and grief that only a mother who'd lost her child could make, and for a moment he couldn't do anything but freeze in the hallway, fist on the door, while Dogmeat barked and whined. But as terrible as that noise was, the single gunshot that followed was so much worse. He was barely aware of the footsteps echoing down the hall towards him because his heart had stopped in his chest.

" _No, no, no_ ," he breathed as he threw his shoulder into the doors. The old wood didn't stand a chance against the full bulk of his power armor and the door splintered and cracked under his weight.

Danse forced himself to look as he pushed past the broken wood and stumbled inside, certain that he was going to find her lying in a bloody puddle on the floor with a bullet through her head. He blinked, his knees going weak with both relief and shock when he saw that not only was she was alive, but firing off a series of shots at the Giddyup Buttercup toy that sat in the corner.

"What the hell are you doing?" he bellowed, his anger over being terrified out of his mind making his voice hard and sharp as he glared at her.

Nora ignored him and kept blowing holes in the mechanical horse she had painfully hunted down, reassembled and painted for her son, as tears streaked down her cheeks. She pulled the trigger at least four times even after the clip was empty until she finally tossed the pistol aside. Her full lips curled into a snarl when the weapon hit the wall, and she looked around, her eyes no longer dead, but glinting with a feverish madness at the toys that she had painstakingly gathered during the search for her son.

Nora's gaze landed on the baseball bat propped up in the corner and before he could stop her, she'd snatched the bat up and swung it with all of her strength at a shelf of full of toys, smashing the toy cars and rockets lined up in a neat row with a cry of pure fury. When they were mangled and shattered, she moved on to the magazine rack of comic books on the back wall.

"Dammit, stand down," he snapped, but Nora didn't listen to him, or maybe she just couldn't hear him through the fog of her destructive grief. Behind him he could hear the sounds of panic and curiosity echoing down the hall, punctuated by Dogmeat's frenzied barking. Garvey's voice rose above the commotion, he was probably trying to restore order amongst his troops, but Danse knew if he didn't do something soon, Nora's grief was going to have an unintended audience.

As ragtag and undisciplined as the Minutemen were, the fact that they were effective at all was due to Nora's leadership. He'd watched her build them up from nothing, and while they weren't the Brotherhood, the idea that they'd see their commander like this, that she'd lose face in front of her troops, didn't sit well with him. So Danse did the only thing he could think of in the circumstances, turning his back on her for a moment as he planted his power armor in front of the hole he'd broken in the doors, disengaging the mechanical claps and stepping out of the suit. It wouldn't keep people out if they really wanted to come in, but it would block some of the view. As for the rest, he'd have to trust Hancock and Garvey to get the situation under control.

Heedless of the commotion she was causing, Nora continued her assault on the toys she'd gathered, slamming the magazine rack so hard that the wood of the bat cracked in her hands. Even when it splintered and broke into a jagged edge, she dropped the bat but didn't stop her assault, slamming her fists into the hard wood, and Danse realized that she was going to continue her grief fueled rampage, until she either collapsed from exhaustion or pummeled herself into a bloody pulp. So he waited until he had an opening and grabbed her wrists from behind.

Out of all of the months that they'd fought shoulder to shoulder they'd never touched before. The heat that curled tight and low from the skin to skin contact caught him off guard enough that she almost twisted out of his grip. The contact seemed to shock her too, enough for her to finally acknowledge his presence for the first time since she'd stepped off of the teleportation pad.

"Let me go, you son of a bitch!"

Danse planted his feet and stood his ground, as the word rumbled from his chest. "No."

His denial seemed to only fuel her fury, as she twisted and cursed at him between grief choked sobs that tore from her throat. She thrashed in his grip like a rabid mole rat. Afraid that she was going to dislocate her shoulder or worse, Danse pulled her closer into the circle of his arms until her back was flush against his chest and his arms were around her like a vise.

Nora might have been the best shot with a long distance rifle that he'd ever seen and not too shabby with pistols and shotguns either, but she had absolutely no experience at hand to hand combat. He was bigger and stronger and had trained half of his life to fight, so she had no real chance to break free. Yet still she fought him, for how long he couldn't say, just that by the time they sank down onto the rocket covered carpet, his arms and chest ached like hell.

Bruises had already started to ring her wrists and she was struggling less, but the tears sliding down her pale cheeks showed no sign of slowing down. "You were right," she somehow managed to say through hiccupping sobs that wracked her trembling shoulders. "All that stuff I picked up as we travelled? It was just garbage."

"I was being an ass," he said, not for the first time regretting his frustrated impatientience that had driven him to snap those thoughtless words. At first he thought she was just some kind of undisciplined pack rat, hoarding random objects that caught her eye as they travelled. He'd felt like an idiot later when it finally occurred to him that she was picking up toys for her son. "I shouldn't have said those things. I didn't understand what you were trying to do."

Nora didn't say anything, her shoulders just slumped forward as more tears came. Danse let her go enough to turn her to her side so he could pull her onto his lap and gather her against his chest.

"It's not fair," she said as she buried her face in the crook of his neck, punctuating the words by pounding his chest with her fist. He bore the pain without protest, knowing that it was nothing in comparison to the hurt she was feeling right now.

"No. It's not," he said, murmuring his agreement against her temple as he slid one of his hands into her ebony hair. With a tired whimper, Nora finally gave up the fight and leaned against him, clutching the fabric of the blue brotherhood fatigues like she was in danger of drowning. Danse sat with her until his back ached, his legs went numb, and his shirt was soaked from her tears. Until her breathing became even and she slumped against him as exhaustion finally overtook her.

It was the padding of leather boots against stone that made him look up. Hancock, holding a syringe full of chems, crouched down next to them. "It's not anything bad. I swear. Just a mild cocktail of sedatives from the doc, okay? I figured she's going to need this tonight."

Danse nodded. He might not like the ghoul, but he knew the freak wouldn't give Nora anything that would hurt her – at least not unless she asked for it. So he waited until the shot was over, then shifted so that he could lift her up and carry her to bed.

Once he had her settled with the dog curled up next to her, Danse groaned and rolled his stiff shoulders, surprised again when he found Hancock once again at his side, this time holding out the remnants of a fifth of whiskey. "This is for you, since I figure after that, you could use something too." There was a long pause, and then. "You did alright, soldier boy."

Danse considered the offering for a moment before taking the liquor, twisting off the top and taking a grateful swallow. The liquid burned like energy blasts down his throat, but it did seem to help ease the cold knot in his belly.

"Thanks," he grunted.

Hancock waved his gratitude away with one deformed hand. "What do we do now?"

"I don't know," Danse said. What had happened with Scribe Haylen hadn't prepared him for the depth of Nora's grief. This wasn't something that she was going to work out of her system with a destructive rampage and one night of crying. At a loss, Danse's gaze drifted to the mangled toys that littered the room. There was at least one thing they could do. "We need get these toys out of here. It hurts her too much to see them."

Hancock placed his hands on his bony hips and nodded. "On it. I'll get Preston to help too when he's done convincing the rest of the Minutemen that this was all just a freak out over a radroach infestation. You just sit tight in case she wakes up."

"I'm not going anywhere," Danse said as he pulled up a nearby chair and settled in, and for the rest of the night, the Paladin kept watch, swearing to himself that he was going to do whatever it took to get her through this whether she wanted it or not.


	2. Chapter 2

**Breaking Point: Part Two**

"She's _gone_."

Danse's growl cut through the buzzing high Hancock was riding (a homebrewed cocktail of mentats, jet and whisky that had taken years to perfect), blowing apart the carefully crafted feel good glow like a grenade tossed into a pack of feral ghouls.

Hancock looked up at the pissed off Brotherhood Paladin scowling down at him, unimpressed by the by the shining power armor filling most of his half-lidded vision. He waved the hand that was more or less in one piece at Danse and said, "No shit. Of course she is."

"You were supposed to keep watch while I slept," Danse said, grinding the words out between his clenched teeth.

"And I did. I watched her waltz right out that fucking door," Hancock said as he pointed a shriveled finger at the cobbled together commander's office door that looked like it might collapse off its hinges at any moment, "about six hours ago."

Hancock tipped his head to the side, curious to see if the Paladin was going to finally snap and try to kick his bony ass, his other hand on the .45 he'd stashed in between the couch's cracked vinyl cushions just in case. But Danse didn't fuck with him by grabbing the lapels of his red coat and slamming him against the wall, although his gauntleted hands flexed like he really, really wanted to. He didn't even cuss Hancock out which was really disappointing. All the pompous tool did was curl his lip and growl down at him. "You _let_ her go?"

"Yeah I let her go. What the hell was I supposed to do? Tie her to the bed?" Hancock asked as he swung a leg up over the armrest. "I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm a freak on the outside _and_ a freak in the sack, but that's not what she's looking for right now."

It was dick move to bait the paladin that way, especially since Danse already looked like shit with dark circles under his eyes and the scruff on his jaw in danger of becoming a full grown beard. But Hancock couldn't stop the smug grin when he saw the in the jealous glint that lit the paladin's brown eyes and the way the man clenched his teeth.

Danse shook his head like he was trying to shake the mental image. "You're high _and_ an idiot."

It was weird. Danse's usual bigoted slurs were no skin off of his rotting ass, but Hancock couldn't stand being dismissed as just another mindless junkie.

Hancock sat up on the couch and jerked his chin high. "Or maybe I'm the smart one here."

"Yes. Letting a woman drowning in grief go off on her own into the commonwealth was a brilliant tactical maneuver. With that kind of strategic thinking, I can see how you became mayor of that town full of freaks."

Danse must have been more rattled than he let on to unwedge the stick up his ass and get sarcastic. At any other time, Hancock would have found the cheap shot amusing.

"Look, it was only a matter of time before she bugged out on us. Trust me. I know when someone's about to run. I've done it enough myself," he added with a mutter, unable to keep the self-loathing out of his voice.

The signs had been there for the last two days despite her almost catatonic state. The tightness at the corner of her full lips, the way her long fingers twitched, how she stared at the door as though she wanted to do nothing more than lock everyone and everything she knew on the other side of it forever.

"Then you should have warned us," Danse growled. And by "us" he meant "him" since Hancock was pretty sure that Preston was just barely above himself in the paladin's eyes.

"You would have tried to stop her and she would have shut down again. At least she's up and moving now instead of lying on the bed and staring at the wall all day."

"And walking into the middle of a hot zone. Do you know how bad it is in the Commonwealth right now? Or are you too high to see that it's raining hell out there?" Danse said as he jerked a thumb at the door.

As much as Hancock hated to admit it, the asshole almost had a point. The reports coming in from both Minutemen scouts and Brotherhood recon units reported that something had crawled up the collective ass of the local supermutant and raider populations. The fighting in the city had gotten so bad over the last two days that even well armored caravan units couldn't make it through. They hadn't even needed official reports to tell them that. The non-stop pop of gunfire in the distance and the lit up night sky told Hancock how bad things had gotten.

It also meant that Cait and Deacon hadn't returned with Valentine yet. Danse hadn't even been able to call in his favor and bring Macready and Piper back since all Brotherhood air units were on high alert until further notice.

Still, Hancock jerked his chin up. "Nora doesn't need you to be her big armored nanny. This is the woman who woke up from a two hundred year nap and still and managed to hike to Diamond City with just a rusty rifle and a dog. She can handle herself just fine."

"Normally, I'd agree," Danse said as he put his hands on his hips. "But she's not in top form right now is she?"

"Right. That's why..." Hancock said as he shoved himself off of the couch and stood with only a _slight_ wobble, "...we're going after her."

Danse's eyes narrowed, from confusion or suspicion Hancock couldn't tell, but he figured it was probably a little of both. "You let her go, but now you want to go track her down?"

"Hell yeah," Hancock said as he shoved the pistol he'd been hiding into the flag that he used as his belt. "She's had enough time get her shit together, so I say it's time to time to find out if our girl is coming home. You feel me?"

"Let's get something straight, ghoul. Under no circumstances will I ever 'feel' you," Danse said, his face twisting in disgust like he'd just drank some of the piss that passed for beer in Diamond City. But then he gestured towards the door. "But I take your point. Do you have any idea where she went?"

Hancock shrugged. "Not a clue. But I know who can track her down," he said as he walked over to the black trench coat and silver scarf she'd left hanging on a hook. Hancock picked up the scarf, letting the soft fabric slide through his hands for a moment before striding out of the room and over to the doghouse that sat in the corner of the courtyard. Danse broke away for a moment to talk to Garvey for a minute, probably to let the Minuteman know that they were going after Nora, while Hancock crouched down next to the dog.

Dogmeat looked up at him, panting in the morning sun, leaning into his hand while Hancock took a moment to scratch behind the dog's pointed ear. Then he held out the scarf in front of the dog's nose. "Think you can find her, boy?"

The dog leapt up and barked as if to ask Hancock what had taken him so damned long, then pressed his nose to the ground and began to search for her trail. By the time Danse had caught up with them, the dog was already out of the fort and halfway down the beach.

Danse's brows rose as he watched the dog. Then nodded and said, "Outstanding."

It was the last word spoken between them for hours as they followed the trail south more or less along the coastline which was just fine with Hancock. While he'd never admit it to the power armored asshole, Hancock was happy that she that she wasn't suicidal enough to go into the city.

Other than the occasional raider too high to have enough brains left to leave them alone, they didn't run into much trouble. Still, it was well into the night by the time Dogmeat led them to a long stretch of beach east of Quincy, past the massive hulk of a wrecked ship. They followed a trail of freshly dead mirelurk carcasses to where the beach ended in front of a sinking lighthouse that leaned to one side. When the dog stopped and barked before the radioactive water, Hancock knew that they'd finally caught up with her.

As tired as Danse looked after hours and hours of tracking her with almost no rest, the man waded into the shallow water with no hesitation, ready to barrel up the stairs. Hancock sloshed through the cold radiated water, barely making it to the doorframe before the paladin got there.

"Woah. Slow down." Hancock said as he spread his hands wide. "Stay here and let me handle this, alright?"

"I didn't walk all this way to wait at the bottom of this lighthouse, ghoul, while you take point. She's my soldier and my responsibility."

"This isn't an assault, man. It's going to take some finesse. Do you really think you're any good at that kind of shit?" Hancock didn't actually expect to see the flicker of doubt cross Danse's face that was lit by the harsh light on his power armor, but he sure as fuck was going to push the advantage while he had it. "Look you've been keeping watch for days, which was good 'cause she needed it. But Nora ran for a reason, probably to get some space from you."

There was a long silence, then a tired sigh that that made Hancock actually feel pity for the guy. "You're saying that I drove her away."

"Naw, man. That's not on you. It's just time to switch up tactics, is all."

Danse's jaw locked, his frustration clear in the hard line of his jaw, but then he said. "Alright. You get first shot. I'll keep guard down here."

As much of a dick as Danse could be, Hancock had to respect the guy for not letting his bullshit hangups get in the way of what needed to be done.

"You do that," Hancock said as he started to climb the circular stairs.

Without Danse's light, it was so dark inside the lighthouse that Hancock had to make his way to the top almost by feel, the cool rusted metal under his hand spiraling upward until it finally opened up on a landing. And there she was, sitting a few steps down from the room at the top, staring north towards Boston. In the starlight, he couldn't make out the expression on her face, she was basically just a shadow against a deeper darkness, but then, he didn't need to. He could tell her mood from the fact that she didn't say a word to him even when he sat down on the step below her.

For all of his posturing to Danse below, now that he was up here, Hancock didn't have the first clue what to say. It occurred to him that he probably wasn't high enough to deal with this, but Nora hated it when he got fucked up in front of her, so he fished a pack of smokes out of his jacket pocket and lit one for himself instead.

"You going to offer me one of those?" she asked. Her voice was quiet and low in the darkness, but it still shocked the hell out of him.

He handed her one, then lit it with his flip lighter. The flickering flame revealed flawless red skin and full red lips for a few seconds. The way she took a deep drag without coughing her lungs out, then closed her eyes and sighed in satisfaction told him that it wasn't her first cigarette.

"Since when do you smoke?" he asked he flipped the lighter shut and left them in darkness again.

"Since I no longer have to worry about raising a kid," she said.

Her voice wasn't weepy and it didn't crack from grief. It was just matter-of-fact, like she was talking about the weather or what kind of gun she was carrying that day, which made it so much worse.

Hancock was glad that she couldn't see him wince in the darkness. He hadn't planned on poking her wounds this early, but hell, at least she was talking now. "Did you smoked before Shaun was born?"

"Yeah. When I was in law school. I stopped when I found out I was pregnant. That was a hell of a lot harder than passing the bar exam, actually."

"The bar exam? That sounds like something I'd be good at."

She made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh, then said, "It's not what it sounds like." There was a pause and then she added, "But yes, you would have made a damned fine lawyer."

Since she couldn't bring herself to laugh, he did it for her. "Even with all of the drugs and booze that I do?"

" _Especially_ with all of the drugs and booze that you do. You would have fit right in with some of my colleagues," she said with a sigh. Silence stretched between them again as he waited. Then she asked, "Why are you here, John?"

Nora was the only one who called him by his first name anymore, who saw past the red coat and drugs and bullshit speeches and still thought the fucked up guy underneath was worth something. "You're my friend, probably the only one I've got. Why the hell _wouldn't_ I be here?"

"Because more than anyone, I thought you'd understand why I needed to go."

"Yeah I get it. I do," he admitted, before pausing to take a drag of his smoke and exhaling through the hole where his nose used to be. "And I'd actually _let_ you leave without giving you shit about it, if I thought you were actually a runner. But you're not."

For the first time he heard her frustration and anger leak into her voice. "Is that right?"

"Yeah, that's right. And I can fucking prove it."

"Really?"

"Yup," he declared as he flicked his ash on the metal steps. "Tell me, Nora, how did you get to be such a good shot with that rifle? I've read enough half charred books and busted museum exhibits to know that being a lawyer didn't have shit to do with sharpshooting. According to Preston, you were dropping raiders at a hundred yards when you'd been thawed out for less than a week. So tell me, how'd you get so good?"

It was a question he already knew the answer to, one that had been asked so many times that the answer was practically legend in the ranks of the Minutemen now, but Hancock wanted to hear it from her. For a moment, he thought that she was going to shut down completely and tell him to fuck off, but she didn't.

"One time Nate took me out shooting with some of his Infantry friends. It was just for fun. A warm afternoon of shooting holes in tin cans to blow off some steam, you know? When they let me have a turn, I was absolutely terrible. They were really kind about it, no one really expected me to know how to shoot. I mean, how could I? It was the first time I'd fired a gun and they were all experienced soldiers, but I couldn't _stand_ it. It made me so angry that for the next year while he was deployed, I joined a gun club, took classes, and practiced almost every single day. And the next time they took me shooting, I kicked all of their asses."

Hancock laughed. "I bet that surprised the hell out of them."

"It did. Nate thought it was amazing. He was so damned proud." There was a pause before she added. "I was proud of myself too."

"See? That, right there, is why you're not going to run away. You're an arrogant shit, Nora."

Even in the darkness he could tell that he'd grabbed her attention by the way the shadow next to him stiffened. She was pissed, he could tell from the tone of her voice, and that was a good sign. "Really. And how do you figure that?"

"Only an arrogant shit would look at an alley sandwiched between supermutants and raiders and turn it into a refuge for settlers. Only an arrogant shit would put on a trench coat and a fedora and take out assholes with a minigun because some slob asked her to. Only an arrogant shit would take a bunch of scrabbling farmers and turn them into a freaking militia. And only an arrogant shit would teleport into an enemy stronghold and demand to know what happened to her kid."

He took a long drag before he continued, his gaze landing on the muted glow the Boston ruins in the distance. "You look at the commonwealth and don't see a hellhole. You see something that can be _fixed_ , even when everyone who tried has fallen on their ass and landed in the gutter. If that isn't arrogant and stubborn and crazy as fuck, I don't know what is."

"I was trying to build a refuge for my son," she snapped.

"I know that was part of it. And that part of you, the part that hoarded toys for her boy and then smashed them all when it didn't work out, is sitting right here. But don't kid yourself. If Shaun had never been born, you'd have done it anyway. You'd do it because the thought of failing pisses you off so hard that you can't see straight. You'd do it because once you start something, you can't let it go until you've won. You'd do it because you love every god damned second of the struggle to put shit right. And that's why you ain't gonna run, even though you want to. You can't, because you don't know any other way to be."

That was why she was stronger and better than him, why he'd follow her anywhere she wanted to go, and why he loved her so fucking much that it sometimes scared the shit out of him.

"So," he said as he stood, flicked the butt of his smoke over the side of the railing, and straightened his red coat, "sit up here. Take as long as you need to pull your shit together. I'll be waiting down there with Danse when you're ready to come home."

Even though he couldn't see her face, he knew she hated him at that moment. But Hancock loved her too much to do anything but walk down that spiral staircase and let her stew.

When he reached the bottom, he waded through the cold water to where Danse and Dogmeat were waiting on the sandbar.

"Well? Where is she?" Danse demanded.

"Stewing."

"And you expect me to just leave her up there."

"For now, yeah. You go up there, and you screw up everything I just did. Give it a few minutes. Alright? She's gotta come down her own or there's no fucking point."

Hancock lit himself another smoke, expecting an argument, but Danse merely looked up at the top of the tower even though it was impossible to see her in the moonless night. Time seemed to stretch and drag. Hancock smoked three more cigarettes, wondering if maybe he'd gotten it all wrong, that maybe karma would finally bite him in the ass and the one thing in the world that he didn't want to run from would decide to turn tail and leave him in the dust, when he finally heard the splashing in the water behind him.

Danse turned his light on, and the two men watched her wade out of the water in silence. She didn't stop until she was face to face with Hancock. The look on her face wasn't blank, but it wasn't quite readable either.

Nora arched an ebony eyebrow. "I'm an arrogant shit, huh?"

"That's right."

"It takes one to know one," she said, and then she walked past right him, heading towards the Boston city lights. Danse looked over at him and gave him a curt, but grateful, nod and Hancock grinned and shoved his hands into his trouser pockets as both men fell into step behind her.


	3. Chapter 3

Breaking Point – Chapter Three

As the only detective in the commonwealth, Nick Valentine had seen more than his fair share of crushed hopes and shattered dreams. People came to him when they'd run out of other options, and more often than not the trails he followed led to a hell of a lot of heartache where the only thing he could offer was the cold truth and a few sympathetic words. He'd hoped Nora's case would be different, he'd never had a client or a friend who'd deserved to have things work out more, but he'd had an inkling from the moment he'd first heard her sad story that the Commonwealth wasn't going to be that kind.

Which was why when she'd told him about her harebrained plan to go into the Institute alone, he'd been sure he was never going to see her again. Since it was either find something to do or go mad with worry, Nick had gone back to Diamond City and buried himself in his neglected case files. The busy work may have saved his sanity while he waited for bad news, but it also meant that he was kicking himself for not being there when she'd needed him. Others had taken the brunt of her first wave of grief, which according to Hancock had been a real doozy, but the dark smudges under her eyes told Nick there was still heavy lifting to do.

Of course, now that he was here he had no idea what to say. The usual platitudes folks fell back on seemed meaningless when faced with such raw grief, but it turned out that Nora wasn't looking for comforting words.

"I need your help, Nick. There's something I have to do. Something I should have done a long time ago."

Nick didn't hesitate. "Name it."

That was how Nick ended up riding in a vertibird behind a pair of Brotherhood pilots who looked like they wanted to punt him out of the side of the helicopter. That was how Nick ended up helping a Brotherhood Paladin, who hated every sprocket in his mechanical guts, retrieve a cold body from a cryogenic pod it should have never been in the first place. And that was how Nick ended up standing shoulder to shoulder with a ghoul, a paladin, a liar, a reporter, a minuteman, a mercenary and a brawler as they all lifted rifles and fired a three volley salute for a man they'd never met.

When the last shot echoed off the Castle's stone walls, Nora bent over the patched up fishing boat that was her husband's funeral bier. There was a flash of gold in the fading daylight as she pulled a tarnished chain looped through a pair of wedding rings from around her neck and tucked it underneath the tattered stars and stripes draped over her husband's body. She brushed a stray lock aside and kissed his forehead, her lips lingering for a few moments as she squeezed her eyes shut, then stepped back and nodded at Danse. The paladin waded out into the radiated water, tripped the motor jury rigged on the back, and shoved the small boat away from the shore.

The motor carried the boat out to sea and when it was about a quarter of a mile away from the beach, Nora used the remote in her hand to set it ablaze. The fire flared to life, glowing in the distance as the flames overtook the vessel and set the centuries old wood alight and they all stood on the beach as the day bled out into twilight until the ship burned and sank.

When it was over, Hancock was the first one to turn to Nora, taking off his tricorn hat off and laying it over his heart as he nodded at her. One by one, the rest of them followed suit, Piper offering a hug, Cait offering a bottle of whiskey, until only Danse, Nora and himself were still on the beach.

Nick prepared to take his turn, figuring that he should make himself scarce so the two of them could have some privacy when he caught the slight shake of Nora's head. Nick's detective instincts started nagging him, about what he couldn't say, just that he had a hunch there was more coming down the pike.

So Nick stayed put while Nora turned to Danse and said, "Thank you." She sighed, and then added, "And not just for today either."

Danse gave her the curt nod that was second nature to soldiers, but the look on the paladin's face betrayed what had become obvious to everyone in the settlement except himself. "You're welcome."

The two of them looked at each other until the silence threatened to splinter apart from the weight of everything not said. Nick wasn't surprised, he'd watched the two of them fight what pulled them together for months now, but as usual her loyalty to her husband and his devotion to duty got in the way.

Eventually, Danse cleared his throat and said the words like he was ordering a tactical retreat. "If there's anything else I can do -"

"There isn't. You've done more than enough. Now I just need to talk to Nick about something."

" _Right_ ," Danse ground out, the word heavy with the paladin's frustration. Nick expected Danse to flash his usual disgusted sneer his way, but while he didn't look happy, he didn't do anything but nod. Then he turned away and walked back to the Castle, each step slow and heavy like it was the last thing he wanted to be doing. Despite everything, Nick couldn't help but feel for the guy.

Nora pulled her captain's hat off and tucked it under her arm, the golden general's stars on her coat collar catching the last of the fading light until she unbound her neat updo and let her hair fall to her shoulders. Even touched by grief, she was still quite the looker with her ebony curls, pale skin, and full red lips, reminding him of the movie stars featured in pre-war pictures that the real Nick Valentine had liked so much.

Nick lit two cigarettes, one for himself and one for her since the gossip around the base had already filled him in on Nora's new habit. She took it gratefully, the lit end glowing as she took a long drag. Seconds dragged into minutes as he waited for her to talk. Hazy memories of sitting across from suspects in an interrogation room came to mind as she shifted and fidgeted the way perps twitched right before they spilled their guts. All that he could do was wait and hope that whatever was eating at her wasn't as bad as he suspected.

Finally she flicked the butt of her smoke away. It hit the water with angry hiss as it went out. When she spoke, her voice sounded just as raw. "I'm so god damned _angry_."

"Of course you are. You're mourning your husband and your son. One is bad enough, but that's a hell of a double whammy."

Nora squeezed her eyes shut for a second. Nick thought that she was trying to hold back tears until she turned to face him. The classic features of her face were twisted into such an ugly tangle of fury and grief and shame that if shivers could run down his metallic spine, he would have felt them now. He'd travelled with her for the better part of a year and the only other time he'd ever seen her look like that was right before she'd put a bullet into Kellogg's head.

"Shaun's alive, Nick."

" _What_?" Nick blinked at her. He knew she'd been holding something back, but those were the last words he'd expected. "But everyone thought... the way you've been acting..."

"I never said he was dead. They all just assumed and I let them because what I found out was so much worse."

He'd travelled the wasteland enough to easily imagine the gruesome fallout of science gone wrong. Both of Nick's hands, the one covered in flesh and the one that was bare steel, clenched into fists. "What did those bastards do to your boy?"

"They _raised_ him. He's their leader, Nick. Shaun is the Director of the Institute."

He was so shocked that he barely heard her as she explained how her son had been kidnapped for his clean DNA in order to make the next generation of Synths. "But that doesn't make any sense. You saw Kellogg's memories. There were witnesses who saw Kellogg and Shaun in Diamond City just months before you showed up there. They left a trail fresh enough for Dogmeat to follow. How can Shaun be old enough to be Institute's director? Unless..." Nick trailed off as the puzzle pieces snapped together and everything made an awful kind of sense. "The kid's a synth, isn't he?"

"Yes. And my son is the old man who created him. He sent that boy synth out in to the Commonwealth so I would track Kellogg down and kill him."

Nick couldn't imagine anything more vicious and cruel than manipulating a mother's love that way. He'd distrusted, feared and even hated the Institute before Nora had walked into his life, but that was nothing to what ground his gears now. Her own son had set her up to face off against a psychopath who'd almost killed her. With two bullets in her side and a nasty concussion from a close call with a grenade, Nora been in such bad shape after taking Kellogg down that the only thing he and Piper could do was stim her up and half-carry, half drag her back to Diamond City while they kept their fingers crossed that the hacks calling themselves doctors wouldn't finish the damned job.

"What the hell for? Some kind of revenge?"

"That's what he claims," she said. "But since he called the murder of his father 'collateral damage' I call bullshit on that. Shaun isn't sorry that the institute took him from us. He doesn't care about me or his father at all. Why would he? They've been his family for the last sixty years. He's lived in an untouchable fortress with pristine walls and clean food and water. Where violence is a rationalized in the name of scientific progress and carried out somewhere he doesn't have to see the consequences. Shaun has no regrets, no apologies, and no remorse for all of the lives the Institute has ruined because he thinks they're the last hope for humanity."

Nora's gaze flickered over the water to the spot where she'd just watched her husband's body burn. "I used to hate that I was the one who survived. I felt so damned guilty that Nate took the bullet and not me. He was the soldier. He was the war hero. If anyone deserved to be standing here, it was him. But now? I'm glad Nate's not here to see what our son has become. I wouldn't want him to feel this pain."

Nick didn't know what the hell to say, there were no words that could make this better for his best friend, so he simply laid a hand on her shoulder. Just when he thought the hits couldn't keep on coming, she turned to him and said, "Shaun wants me to join him, Nick. He wants me to become part of the Institute, and be their agent up here in the Commonweath."

"He wants you to take Kellogg's place and do their dirty work, you mean."

"Yes," she said softly.

Nick's brows furrowed together as the corner of his lip tightened into a deep frown. "You can't seriously be considering his crazy offer?"

"I'm not going to lie. It's tempting. Their technology is impressive. The Institute talks a good game. Hell, I think they even convinced themselves that they want to help people." Nora's shoulders slumped as though she could feel the weight of the entire Commonwealth on them. "I _know_ that they've kidnapped and murdered a lot of people for their experiments. I _know_ that they spread fear and paranoia to keep the Commonwealth weak and divided. I _know_ that they treat their synths as slaves. But part of me still wants to believe that something can be salvaged from all of pain and destruction. That Nate didn't die for nothing. That Shaun really will use all that knowledge and technology to save the Commonwealth."

"It's a lie. We both know that."

"It is," as she looked down as her hands. "A dangerous and seductive lie told to a woman who doesn't want to lose the only tie she has left to her dead husband. Who doesn't want to believe the manipulative old man sharing her genetic material will never be her son in any way that matters. But the truth is that Nate is dead and nothing is ever going to bring him back. The truth is that Shaun is a cold and calculating monster who's using me."

It was so unfair that she was forced to swallow such a bitter pill, but part of him couldn't help but admire the way she faced the truth. Most people he'd known would have buried their head in the sand by now.

"What are you gonna do?"

Nora straightened her shoulders and looked him square in the eye, her blue eyes hard and bright as the stars that were winking to life above them. "I'm going to tear down everything my son has built, and I'm not going to stop until the Institute is nothing more than a smoking crater in the ground."

Nick knew that she meant every word she said. Not because she was his best friend or because they'd traveled together for the better part of a year, but because he was a kindred spirit who knew that kind of fury and grief intimately. He'd walked the tightrope between vengeance and justice himself as he chased down the man who'd murdered Jenny, and now Nora was going to do the same thing.

So he knew there was no talking her out of it, even if he'd wanted to. The boy had pushed his mother to her breaking point, the same way Eddie Winters had driven Nick to obsession, but instead of shattering Nora into a thousand pieces so he could mold her into an easily manipulated pawn, Shaun had forged a dangerous enemy. All Nick could do now was what she'd done for him: stand by her side as she did what she needed to do and do his damnedest make sure she came out on the other end in one piece.

Nick crossed his arms over his trench coat and quirked a brow. "You're not doing this alone. You know that right?" he said, knowing she'd be tempted to bench all of her friends. But he wasn't about to let her run off to the Brotherhood in some kind of harebrained attempt to protect her friends by keeping them out of the fight.

"This isn't as simple as tracking down my kid, Nick. This is war, and I can't ask that of you or any of the others."

"You don't have to. We'd all do it anyway." His gaze flickered over her shoulder to the reclaimed Minutemen headquarters. "Some because they'd follow you no matter what, but some because the commonwealth is our home too. We all have a stake in what happens next, Nora. This is our fight as much as yours. Don't cut us out."

Nick watched her gratitude and her fear clash across her face as she considered his words, hoping like hell that she realized she needed her friends much as they needed her. Then, she nodded and said. "Alright." She looked back at the castle, weary fatigue leeching away her fury, at least for now. "I'll need to tell them everything. They need to know what they're getting into."

"Tomorrow," he said, as he bent down and grabbed the fifth of whiskey that Cait had left for them, propped up against a piece of driftwood. "Tonight, come and have a drink with an old friend."

He held out his arm the way the real Nick Valentine had done for the ladies back in the time before the bombs dropped, hoping like hell that she'd take the refuge he offered. Just when he was certain that she was going to tell him to go away so she could wallow in the darkness alone, Nora reached out and took his arm with a soft sigh. Then she rested her cheek against his shoulder for a few moments while Nick covered her hand in his, waiting as she drew strength from his silent comfort.

Finally lifted Nora head and took a deep breath, her voice wavering with the effort of trying to sound like her usual self. "Whiskey, huh? You sure this isn't going to corrode your gears?"

The words were forced, but the fact that she still cared enough to pick herself up and try made him think she was going come out okay in the end. That was good because Nick didn't know what the hell he was going to do if she didn't.

Nick snorted, "I was drinking rotgut like this long before you ever set foot topside. It does a good job of cleaning out the gunk, but I've got better stuff stashed away, if your constitution is too delicate to handle it."

She laughed. It was barely a more than breath and only for a second, but genuine enough to warm his mechanical heart. "You're such a goddamn gentleman, Nick."

"Oh yeah, I'm a real classy guy. Did I ever tell you about that time..." he asked, as he started into a story, knowing that the words didn't really matter. What mattered was that he was there, that she was going to be alright, and that they were walking back towards the lights of the Castle, arm and arm, together.


End file.
